In the Blue
by LynnAgate
Summary: Xanadu AU. Things haven’t been the same for Clarke since her father died, but when a gorgeous stranger who turns out to be a Muse (Bellamy) saves her life, kisses her, and then disappears, she becomes inspired to continue with her art and pursue him. Disclaimer: For entertainment purposes only.
1. Chapter One (03-09 14:13:48)

Clarke Griffin changed out of her scrubs and back into her dark wash jeans and navy v-neck sweater, tired after a long shift that included setting the broken bones of Mr. and Mrs. Trubschenk, an older couple who were so in love, it would almost make her sick if they weren't so perfect for each other.

The Trubschenks were victims of a head-on collision a couple hours prior. He had been driving when the other car crossed the median and hit them. Besides the scrapes and bruises, they were very lucky to have only broken his right hand and her left wrist, a clue that did not escape Clarke's deduction: they'd been holding hands at the time of the accident.

Old people still in love, she thought wistfully. That could have been her parents - high school sweethearts who married right out of college. Clarke had asked them multiple times throughout her childhood for a little brother or sister, and each time they'd answered, "We'll see."

But they never had another child, and the reason, as Clarke found out by accident when she was looking through old family documents, was that Clarke's mother Abby suffered complications during delivery which required an immediate postpartum hysterectomy. Logically, Clarke understood it was not her fault, but emotionally, she still felt the weight of that guilt, especially because she had asked so often with no clue about their grief and heartbreak.

As Clarke collected her messenger bag stuffed with her dirty scrubs, protected from the fabric by a waterproof plastic bag, as well as her wallet, keys, phone, and umbrella, she heard her mom approaching in the hallway and rolled her eyes. She undoubtedly was going to ask -

"Clarke, honey, how are you?" Abby just missed the eye-rolling as she rounded the corner and fixed her stare on her daughter.

Pulling her royal blue scarf around her neck and fishing her wavy bright blonde hair out from under it, Clarke huffed loudly and grabbed her jacket from the locker. "I'm fine, mom," she said, meeting her mother's eyes and hoping her stare was firm enough to get across the idea that she was, in fact, fine. "Honestly, you ask me like five times a day," she said, slipping on her coat. "Like I'm some fragile figurine in the menagerie that needs constant supervision."

Perhaps Abby thought she did, though. There were a few times over the past year that she caught her mother blatantly checking her wrists to make sure they were still pristine. A lot had happened in the past year, but Clarke had taken no suicidal actions.

Abby nodded, her chestnut brown hair falling forward over one shoulder as she fidgeted with the clipboard under her arm. "I wish you would move back home. It's lonely without you."

"Yes, I know, mom, but really, I'm fine," she tried again.

"I just worry about you, Clarke. You still haven't dealt with-"

"Well, don't," Clarke interrupted harshly, threading her head and arm through the messenger bag's strap. "I just need time." As Clarke passed her mom to leave the on-call room, she heard Abby's defeated sigh.

"Don't forget your umbrella. The downpour was supposed to start half an hour ago."

Stepping out into the chill of the early morning, Clarke felt the moisture heavy in the air and scanned the nearby, almost deserted streets. Though it was cold and likely to rain, she preferred walking home the few blocks from the hospital. Not to the Griffin Estate - just to her apartment. She wasn't ready to return to her childhood home - the mansion across town that the salaries of the Chief of Surgery and Lead Architect had built.

Sometimes she stopped by the all-night coffee shop Pump and Grind for a hot drink or a quick snack. Usually the good restaurant Blackbird was closed by two AM, so she couldn't go there, and she didn't want to go to the shitty restaurant just because it was open. Besides, since her roommate Raven was away on her internship at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Clarke had no one else to go with, anyway. And she sure as hell didn't feel like going to Rory's, the local bar, though when she passed the entrance, the stragglers still inside finishing their drinks before closing looked warm and happy.

She'd just walk home, feed Raven's cat Figaro, have a glass of wine, and microwave her dinner. Maybe catch whatever Netflix thing was hot right now.

She fished her phone from her bag and saw she had a missed call and voicemail. She pressed play and listened to the message.

"Hi, Clarke, it's Iliana from Elysium. I was calling to see if you by chance have any pieces ready?" Clarke could already hear the sadness in her voice. "We have a show coming up and would love to feature your work again. We miss you; it's been over a year, and we haven't seen any new pieces from you since-"

Clarke pulled the phone down and deleted the message. _Since my father died._ _I know._

A crack of lightning flashed like a strobe light and Clarke looked up at the sky, waiting for the thunder, like her father taught her.

Jake Griffin was Clarke's father and her most favorite person in the world. When she was little, they'd sit next to the pool at the back of the estate and stare up at the stars. When the constellations were clear, his blue eyes lit in glee and Jake asked Clarke what she saw - all those little stars so far away were magical because they formed pictures and scenes. Clarke would tell her father about the adventures of the King of Ice Nation, a man whose cheekbones were marked, those scars lined by twinkling stars like the old connect-the-dots games, or of the Princess warrior who became queen, whose long braids formed a pretty Mohawk she outlined by stars. Her father would strum his guitar, lazy and meandering melodies floating on top of her stories like fragrance on the wind, while she dreamed up worlds swimming in the abyss of the indigo sky.

As she grew up, those stories inspired her to pick up her paintbrush or pastels or charcoals, and she'd work into the night, sometimes into the morning, making those visions come to life. When she felt stumped, she'd pick at her father's guitar until she found an inspiring sound. Jake often found her asleep in the pool house (née, her art studio), the room littered with parchments and canvasses, his guitar sometimes smudged with the different mediums.

It was at her mother's insistence that she follow in her medical footsteps, as Clarke had a mind for it. But it was with her father's encouragement that she also pursued art, as she had heart and passion for that. When she met Iliana, the older woman was enamored with Clarke's imaginative pieces, and immediately brought Clarke into the gallery. Eight out of ten pieces sold the first night, and she'd celebrated with her dad by looking up into the deep nighttime sky and wondering new inspirations with the star patterns.

But now, when she looked up at the sky, a blanket of white fog floated between her and those once-wondrous worlds. Now, stars were just stars. Worse, they carried a sadness because logically she knew they were already dead, they just wouldn't see them burn out all the way down here on Earth. There were no more stories of a young steampunk-inspired chemist and his best friend, landing on a foreign planet and discovering fermented fruits never before known to them, getting drunk by accident. No more stories about the iridescent butterflies and their beautiful mutations. No more lyrical ballads accompanied by acoustic guitar. There was no more magic, because there was no more Jake Griffin.

Less than two seconds after the lightning, a rolling boom sounded, and Clarke glanced to the other side of the street where there was a large awning outside of a bridal boutique. She slipped her phone into her bag and started walking quickly toward the crosswalk.

She felt the first drop as she pushed the button signaling a pedestrian waiting to cross, and started to dig around in her bag for her telescoping umbrella. The crosswalk chirped and she stepped off the curb and began walking while the sky suddenly opened up with that downpour her mother warned her about. Somewhere in the background, she heard the restaurant door open and a group of people shuffle out into the night, laughing and talking to each other about how they'd get home and who was getting a ride because someone else was drunk and no one should be driving in this downpour.

She knew from six months' time of walking home that she had twelve seconds to cross the street. With one foot in front of the other, she shuffled through the walk, unable to find her umbrella by touch, and the rain collecting in her hair making strands of it stick to her face. She hesitated only a moment in the middle of the street to squint into her bag and grab the umbrella at the bottom. In her peripheral vision, she caught a thick, horizontal shaft of orange, blue and white light streak by.

Snapping toward the direction of the light, Clarke tried to focus on the entrance to Blackbird to see if it that's where it was coming from, but before her eyes landed on the being by the entrance, two more shafts of bright white light shined in her face from a different direction. A distinctly male voice called out to her, "Hey, watch out!"

Clarke saw only a mop of dark hair before she was tackled out of the crosswalk and into the gutter. With the wind knocked out of her and somewhat hazed vision, her lungs protested her efforts in scrambling to figure out which way was up. Tires sluiced through the intersection and taillights sped past the hospital in the distance, which was the moment Clarke realized she'd nearly been hit by a car.

Her hands found purchase in the form of a muscular chest, and she belatedly realized that the stranger's warm hands were split between the nape of her neck and the small of her back. She shifted in place, and the stranger groaned. Apparently, he'd tackled her, but she'd landed on him.

"Oh my god, I'm so sorry," she began.

As he regained his breath, his first words were, "You okay?" His gorgeous dark eyes sparkled, the concern evident by his upturned brows.

Clarke shifted a bit, feeling those hands of his still holding her firmly against him. "Yeah," she said, her knees posting next to his hips, inadvertently straddling him so she could stand. She felt his grip loosen.

They both got to their feet quickly, and the man wiped his palms on his jeans, even though both were wet and the action proved moot. He chuckled to himself - a deep, rich rumbling Clarke felt through her body, and which she found she liked. She looked up to meet his sparkling brown eyes and wondered why everything about him seemed so enthralling – his voice, his eyes, his laugh. She noticed the freckles under his eyes and tamped down on the sudden urge to count them, memorize them, touch them.

"Are you," she asked. "I mean, are you okay?" She smiled up at him and pushed a few wet ringlets away from her face to see him better.

The olive-skinned man smiled wide, the little dimple in his chin disappearing with the action. He stared into her eyes with something like awe. A genuine appreciation. He traced her hair, her eyes, her cheekbones. He followed the rivulet of rain which fell from the tip of her nose onto her upper lip, and then kept his gaze on her slightly parted lips.

She blushed under his scrutiny. "Because I can check you out if you want."

This broke him out of his trance. He was still smiling. "You can check me out?"

"Oh my gosh, I didn't mean it like that, I mean, not that I don't think you're attractive – I do, you've got this whole tall, dark and handsome thing going on… I can't believe I just said that. I mean," she looked down and bent to grab the umbrella that had been knocked out of her hand during the tackle, and a few of the items that fell out of her bag when they hit the ground. "I, um, I'm a resident at the hospital, so if you need any medical assistance, I can-"

The moment she looked back up at him, the handsome stranger cupped her face in his hands and rubbed his thumbs along her cheekbones gently, as if pressing any harder would somehow mar her skin.

"I, um-" she tried again, her brain short-circuiting at his touch. She could see he was staring at her lips, a kind of hungry expression in his eyes. She felt throughout her bones that he was going to kiss her. For the first time since Finn, she wanted nothing more than to have a man kiss her, this man specifically. But before she could rise up on her tiptoes, the intriguing man surged forward and pressed his lips to hers. It was a persistent, but gentle kiss, and immediately stunned Clarke into forgetting what she was saying and doing. His lips were soft like velvet and caressed hers as if savoring her.

Pleasantly shocked, Clarke reveled in the stranger's kiss for a fraction of a second before he disengaged. His sparkling eyes seemed underlined by those dozens of freckles scattered across his cheekbones.

But that was all the time she'd been given to memorize them, because without further ado, he took off running in the direction of the hospital and her would-be-hit-and-runner.

"Wait," she called, but it was no use. He was already gone. She turned toward the bridal boutique's window and touched her fingers to her lips. "What. The fuck," she mumbled aloud.

In a sudden burst of energy, Clarke nearly ran the rest of the way home without a care that it was storming, and with a slight suggestion of a smile curling her lips.

Really, she should have been creeped out or upset or something, but the truth was, she wasn't. At all. She replayed the series of events leading up to this amazing stranger and his dazzling kiss. He had saved her from becoming another hit-and-run statistic.

Christ, she didn't even know his name. Had he come from the restaurant? The bar? Was he drunk? Why did he run off? How did he learn to kiss like that?

But for the first time in a year, when she burst through the front door of her apartment, she let everything fall to the floor in the entryway, tore off her coat and scarf, and began ransacking the drawers in the kitchen for a pen, a pencil, a crayon – something, anything. Figaro, the black and white shorthair cat, watched her from his perfectly proper seated position on the counter, head tilted slightly to the left.

Clarke found an almost dried-up pen in the utility drawer next to some hot sauce, under a few takeout menus and their stick lighter, and rescued it from what would have been its eternal resting place.

Next, she went right back through all those same drawers, trying to find something resembling paper that wasn't a covered-in-grease takeout menu, or a too-thin paper towel, ending up with a cream colored cloth napkin she and Raven had stolen from the restaurant where Raven caught Finn and Clarke on a date.

Clarke sat down at their breakfast nook table and began sketching. His eyes were so goddamn sparkling, and the constellation of freckles infuriated her because she was so drawn to them but she'd only seen them twice, and not long enough to map their positions on his handsome face, and she just couldn't get them right.

She sketched him eight times that night.


	2. Chapter Two

Clarke woke up with her cheek stuck to a page in Raven's _Popular Science_ magazine, her mouth dry from having been left open all night. She had sketched that gorgeous freckled man on an ad - had gone into Raven's room for reinforcements in the form of another pen - and had fallen asleep with the pen in her hand, its life force making a slightly inky pool in the middle of the man's forehead.

She groaned and rolled to her side, dropping the pen and peeling the magazine from her face. Her mouth had been awfully close to the blue-lined lips of the stranger who had kissed her last night, as if even subconsciously, she had been trying to kiss him again.

Glancing at the oven clock, she realized she overslept and had forty-five minutes before her next shift, which gave her about thirty minutes to get ready and hurry to Pump and Grind for her peppermint mocha. She hadn't bothered to buy brew-at-home coffee in six months, which was the same amount of time Raven had been gone.

She found Figaro pacing the counter like a caged lion, and quickly filled his food bowl. He could be such a diva sometimes, refusing to eat from the bowl if he'd already eaten a 'hole' in the existing kibble. He leapt down and dove face first into the food. Clarke scratched his head. "Sorry, Fig. I guess I got a little carried away last night."

The crunchy smacking sound of his chewing reminded her she hadn't eaten last night either, and she added a bagel or pastry to her mental order at the coffee shop.

Forgoing washing her hair, she made great time showering, and pulled on her backup scrubs and coat. She grabbed her phone charging cable, stuffed it and a set of clothes into her bag, slipped into her shoes, and shouted a quick goodbye to Figaro on her way out the door.

The coffee shop was kinda busy for this time of day. Maybe it was because of the undercaffeinated masses who fell into that low energy afternoon slump. Or maybe they, too, had stayed up almost all night adding beautiful men to the advertisements in magazines - maybe the expensive yacht in the sunscreen ad needed a nicely dressed dark stranger leaning against its railing, or perhaps the contact lens ad needed the sparkles in the eyes of a deep brown eyed guy to really sell the clarity of the product.

Clarke stood at the counter, sprinkling some cocoa powder into her mocha, and stared down at her left hand. Her fingers were stained with the reinforcement pen from last night. Those stains brought a smile to her face; she couldn't remember the last time she'd seen those outside of a leaky pen incident.

The little sweet brown sprinkles sitting on the surface of her mocha reminded her of the dark haired man's freckles, and she felt her lips curling in another smile, wondering if he had liked the kiss as much as she had, and wishing she could see him again.

When she looked back up, movement at the cash register drew her attention, because there was her mystery man from last night, paying for his coffee.

Think of him and he shall appear, she thought. His somewhat curly hair was even more unruly today, and Clarke felt the urge somewhere deep in her core to be the one to tug it, pull it, run her hands through it. Her eyes glazed over with a slight fantasy of the kind of situation they'd be in where she could tug on his hair, make him groan.

He saw her then, and she couldn't place the look on his eyes. Not surprise, but... intrigue? He watched her, eyes glued to hers, a gentle grin tugging at the corners of his lips, until she started to feel warm under his gaze. She tucked a few wisps of hair behind her ears, looking away, slightly embarrassed. Did he even remember her?

When she came back to him, he smiled flirtatiously, blushing, before taking his change from the barista to put in the tip jar and making his way over to her.

"Hi."

Clarke smiled wider. There was something about the low timbre of his voice that skated slowly over her skin like melting ice. "Hi."

"How are you?"

"Good. How are you?" She focused on the divot in his chin for a second and then dragged her eyes up to his.

"I'm good, Clarke."

"How did you know my name?"

He grinned again and cast his brown eyes down to her cup, which had her name written on it in black marker.

"Oh," she realized. Before her nerves got the better of her, she added, "Do you think we could see each other again?"

"We're seeing each other now," he quipped.

"Alright, smart aleck, I meant outside of this." She looked down to her scrubs. "When I'm not wearing my work clothes."

His eyebrows shot up playfully. "So you want me to see you without those clothes on?"

Clarke blushed. Her mouth fell open in pleasant surprise while he cracked a smile. Well, the idea was exciting in a way she hadn't felt since Finn.

"Yeah, Clarke, we'll see each other again."

"Maybe when we do, I'll finally know your name."

"Bellamy," the barista called, passing his drink over the counter.

"Bellamy," Clarke repeated, nodding. She'd never met anyone named Bellamy before, but she liked the way his name sounded, and the fact it took so much of her mouth to say it.

His eyes drifted shut for a moment, almost as if he was in pain and her voice was making it less bearable. "Meet you back here after your shift? What, around two?"

"Yes," she agreed. "Maybe we can talk about that kiss."

He licked his lips. "Maybe," he responded coyly.

"Bye, Bellamy." Clarke picked up her mocha and backed away from the counter, holding his gaze until she bumped into someone's arm.

Bellamy shook his head, but he had a joyful countenance. "Bye, Clarke."

But she didn't see him around two, because around two when her shift should have ended, she was still in the OR assisting her mother with the surgeries of the victims of a four car pileup.

It was well after three when she headed to the coffee shop, her fingers fidgeting with the hope she was hanging onto that he might still be there. He had been flirting back, right? She wasn't just imagining his reactions to her?

She pulled open the doors and scanned the few tables with people seated at them, but it was to no avail. Bellamy wasn't there. If he had been there at two, there was no doubt in her mind that he probably thought she'd stood him up. She could hardly blame him if that's what happened. With no way to contact her, he probably would have just taken her absence as a hint and went home.

She approached the counter, where she saw a barista she had not met before. Not that she knew all the baristas, but she thought she'd met all the night shift employees over the past year and a half. This guy had dark brown hair and seriously broody eyebrows, out from under which peeked his mischievous blue eyes, and when he fixed them on Clarke, she felt a strong bedroom-vibe emanating from them. His lean frame and light skin lent him a kind of noirish, debonair visage.

"Excuse me, um," she started, looking for his name tag.

"Yes? What can I get you? Wait, let me guess," he said looking over her attire and expressions as if gleaning understanding.but what could he have deduced from her wrinkled clothes and tired eyes? After a few more seconds, he said, "peppermint mocha."

Her mouth fell open in surprise. "Good guess. Except I'd rather not have another one right now. My shift was supposed to be over like an hour ago."

"You work over at the hospital."

"Yeah, I'm a resident."

He smiled, and Clarke felt drawn-in by his easy conversation. "Doesn't seem fair to the rest of us," he said, his lips in a slight downturn.

She jerked her chin back. "In what way?" She'd worked hard to get where she was, and here was yet another person trying to stick an 'entitled' label on her. People had done that all through her schooling years, and claimed nepotism when she was hired on at the same hospital at which her mother was head of surgery.

"Sorry," he backtracked, seeing the blue of her eyes burn with passion. "I meant, it's not fair to the rest of us that you are cerebral, and compassionate, and drop dead gorgeous."

Now, she burned for a different reason, and the brown-haired barista watched how uncomfortable the compliment seemed to make her. But then she narrowed her eyes at him.

"Why would you think I'm cerebral," she asked, leaning forward a bit. No one had ever called her cerebral before.

He looked away a second, and then answered, meeting her eyes again. "You're a doctor. Doctors make their decisions based on cold, hard facts. You're brainy; I mean that in a good way, like smart." He paused, his face twitching into a resigned grin. "This is not going well for me," he laughed. "Did you miss the part where I called you compassionate and gorgeous?"

Clarke finally broke and chuckled. Maybe 'cerebral' had worked on plenty of women before, but she didn't want to think of herself as cerebral. To her, that meant she ruled her actions with her head and not her heart.

She realized with a start that maybe he was right; maybe she was cerebral, but she didn't want that to be her defining characteristic. Though compassionate was something to which she aspired, and gorgeous was nice, she didn't feel like she deserved those words either, so she replied plainly, "Thanks."

"Why do you have a tough time with compliments," he asked, leaning forward himself, almost as if he thought she was about to lower her voice and divulge all of her secrets.

She didn't know the answer to that one. Instead, she offered, "you know what? I'm actually pretty hungry. Think I could get an old fashioned?"

He stepped back, the moment obviously spoiled. "Sure."

He busied himself getting the donut from the case. She hadn't asked for chocolate or maple, so he picked the glazed one and slid it in the bag. He handed it over the counter.

Clarke took out her card. "One ninety-nine, right?"

"On the house."

"Murphy," shouted the voice of the night manager, Vinnie, from just beyond the employees only door. "That's coming out of your paycheck!"

He tensed a moment. A dollar ninety-nine wasn't going to break the bank, but Vinnie apparently was watching and listening to his employees, and that irked him.

"Murphy?" Clarke raised her brows.

He rolled his eyes. "My last name. There's like four Johns here."

"Well, hello John Murphy, I'm Clarke." She reached her hand forward, a hand he accepted somewhat gingerly before he shook it.

"Nice to meet you, Clarke. Sorry about the cerebral thing."

"Does your mouth always get you into trouble?"

He smirked almost lasciviously. "Usually. Also gets me out of trouble," he added suggestively.

Was he talking about talking or kissing or maybe even oral? She wasn't sure at first, but his twinkling eyes confirmed all three. She didn't know how to respond. Though the lean man wasn't usually her type, she felt pulled to him somehow. Maybe in the past she'd have taken him up on the unsaid offer, but she really wanted to find Bellamy.

"Sure you don't want that mocha?"

It felt kind of nice to feel wanted again. She'd closed herself off for a long time. But he was laying it on a little thick, and she kept thinking about Bellamy. Maybe he also got out of trouble in similar fashion.

"I better not," she said, answering more than one question. "I'm about ready for bed."

He nodded, and though he seemed to be almost frowning, she didn't feel like he was upset. Maybe he had resting sarcastic face. "I got one of those, too," he said. At her confused look, he added with a charming smile, "a bed."

Clarke looked down. She was usually a pretty good judge of character, Finn notwithstanding, and she felt like she could have gone home with a stranger - if it had been yesterday, before she met Bellamy. Belatedly, she realized the barista was the second stranger in two days to flirt with her so openly. "Sorry, John Murphy, I'm actually looking for someone else."

"Yeah, who's that?"

"Were you here around two?" When he nodded, she continued. "Did you see a guy, maybe about six feet tall, dark hair, dark eyes, freckles? Name's Bellamy?"

John's eyes bugged out a little, and then narrowed. "Yeah, I know him. How did you meet him?"

"Weirdest thing. Yesterday when I was walking home, the storm started, and then this car came out of nowhere. It was coming right at me. He saved my life and then kissed me and then took off. This afternoon, I happen to run into him here, and we kinda set a time to meet here later, but then I had to work later and couldn't tell him I'd be late. Do you know if he left a note or a phone number or something?"

John crossed his arms and leaned against the back counter. He could see the hope in her eyes. "He kissed you, huh?" It mas more like a statement. He shook his head in something like disbelief, then scanned under the counter. "Nope. No notes."

Her face fell at the news, then she looked back up to him. "Can I leave my number with you and you can give it to him next time you see him?"

John pursed his lips. He didn't want to be anyone's messenger boy, but he nodded anyway. "Sure, Dr. Clarke."

Clarke ripped off a piece of her donut's paper bag, scribbled her cell phone number on it, and passed it over to John. "Thanks, John."

"Call me Murphy. Everyone else does." He put her number away. "One more thing."

"Yeah?"

"Bellamy's not six foot."

What did that matter? She gave him a weird smile as if to say _okay..._ and waved as she left the shop.

Out in the cold again, Clarke walked toward her apartment and replayed her conversation with Murphy. The further away from the shop she walked, the more she really wanted to find Bellamy.

Just outside her apartment building, she saw they had just changed the billboard to promote Halestorm's new album, _River_ _Styx_. Usually the band modeled for their own covers, but this one was different.

This time, the scene depicted a river, rushing from one side to the other, out in a forested area. The moon shone bright above the tree line, and either side of the embankment was clear, except for one person.

Clarke's mouth dropped open in awe as she stared up a full story at the board, because right there on the opposite embankment, staring back at her with parted lips as if parched for her, was Bellamy.


	3. Chapter Three

Sitting outside Echo Photography's studio on the seventh floor of the high rise building downtown, Clarke bounced her leg up and down impatiently. It had taken her several hours to find out who had photographed Bellamy on the _River Styx_ album cover, and once she did, she immediately called the young woman's office.

Kian, Echo's assistant, took a superior tone with Clarke that she really didn't appreciate, citing that the photographer in question was just too busy for one simple conversation. Clarke only wanted to find out if there was any contact information for Bellamy on file, since he was the model for the album, but Kian said he did not have access to model agreements from before he was hired. Clarke asked again if she could just speak with the photographer for one minute. Insisting that Echo only had time for paying customers, Kian promptly hung up on Clarke.

Dejected, she tried to sleep and was met with insomnia and anxiety, and a cumulative sleep total of about two hours, before she came up with another idea.

She called Echo Photography back, and, affecting an accent of a successful British advertising CEO, stated she was in town on a layover and had an opening she hoped to fill with meeting the young woman whose work a Google search proved was astute, artistic, and fresh. And new. Apparently, this young woman's work was blowing up all over. It had all started about five months prior.

That same snarky assistant at first told Clarke that her meetings were for paying clients only.

"Then you will want to tell her you prevented her from meeting with an English advert company for an international campaign that could rake in hundreds of thousands. Thank you for your time." Clarke hung up.

But she banked on the hope that he'd call her right back, which he did, and told 'Stella' that they'd just had an opening, and could she be there before closing at 4:30pm?

Here she was, 4:29 on the dot, sitting in the office wearing the only business suit she owned - actually, just the skirt and blazer over the secretary blouse her mom bought her last year for Christmas. She felt kind of stuffy, like how she imagined a British librarian might look, and finished off the ensemble with a pair of rose gold cat-eye glasses and a tight bun.

Now that she was there, she put Kian's voice to his face. He was a tall, muscular guy with a dark brown man-bun and a downturned brow, and he attempted to size her up with narrowed brown eyes when she arrived. He wore dark slacks and a burgundy sweater which both accentuated his physique. Clarke couldn't help but imagine that this guy did lots of squats.

"Echo's just finishing up with another client. She'll be right with you," he said, walking around the office area and glancing at his clipboard.

Clarke had no idea what was on it, but she busied herself on her phone, feigning looking at financial news while Kian feigned not watching her every move from just over the edge of the clipboard.

"What company did you say you were with," he finally asked.

Thankfully, she didn't have to answer, because the door to the studio burst open and out walked a gorgeous man with smooth skin like mocha, wearing a black v-neck tee stretched over a well-defined upper body that she assumed sat atop an equally well-defined lower body. His head had been shaved bald, and some dark and swirling tribal tattoos peeked out from his sleeves.

The man did a double take as if in some kind of awe, until he tore his eyes away and back to the photographer who'd just followed him out.

With her even-toned skin and pristinely arched brows over creamy hazel eyes, she effortlessly exuded confidence in her stature and gait. "Okay, Lincoln, we'll have headshots ready in a few days."

The man nodded and shook her hand, and with one last glance, left the suite. Not one smile the entire time.

Clarke stood and approached her. "Stella Griffin, thanks for seeing me on such short notice."

"Come on in, Stella," she motioned.

Clarke ducked past Kian into the studio and Echo shut the door.

"What can I do for you Miss Griffin?"

Clarke attempted to look her in the eyes as she began, but Echo busied herself walking around and breaking down her lighting equipment. "I represent an advert company overseas, and what we're really interested in is utilizing your services for an international campaign. We saw your Halestorm work for the _River Styx_ album, and we'd also like to use the same model."

The long-haired brunette collapsed a softbox and cast a suspicious side-eye her direction. "I see. What's the product?"

Her heart hammered into her chest. "It's, um, a light bulb company," she floundered. "Bright Ideas, they're called. The customer wanted Bellamy in the ad, since the moonlight shining off his hair looks like midnight blue ink, swirling in little curls. They make light bulbs."

The photographer smiled and removed a lens from her camera, nestling it safely in a special case made just for it. "You're not really English, are you?"

Burning with embarrassment, Clarke's face blossomed red. She dropped the act. "What gave me away?"

"You lost your accent, for one," Echo stated. Clarke hadn't even noticed. "Also, I never knew his name. Bellamy, huh? Kind of a weird name."

"So's Echo," Clarke said. "No offense."

She shrugged. "Stella your real name?"

"Clarke." She reached out to shake Echo's hand.

"Kind of a weird name. No offense," Echo parried back.

Clarke liked this woman. She seemed sharp, and she was attracted to that quality. "So how come you never knew his name? Don't you know the names of the models you work with?"

Echo swept her hair over her shoulders and stared almost into the distance. "Normally, yes. But this one - Bellamy, I guess - he kind of just showed up on the site while I was out shooting. There was just something about him. And he saw I had a camera and just stared right into it, like he was supposed to be there."

Imagining Bellamy out in a forest somewhere, hiking around and moonlight playing off of him and water rushing nearby made Clarke's hands itch to sketch him again.

"I only took the one photo of him, and then he was gone." She returned to packing up her camera bag, and continued. "When the band saw it, they went nuts. Really liked him. Said he embodied the sort of 'night watchman look of someone who would ferry the dead to the underworld,' and begged us to sell them that image. I asked around, even did my due diligence trying to find out who he was, but I never did."

The whole thing left Clarke perplexed. Surely, Bellamy would want to get paid for his modeling. Who was this guy who ran around saving people's lives and showing up randomly in album covers? Who kissed like he did and looked at her like she was precious?

"So is that why you're here," asked Echo.

"Is what why I'm here?"

"Are you here to demand compensation? Because that photo shoot was over six months ago, but I have the money..."

"Oh. No... wait, your assistant said he was hired on after that shoot." Clarke thought back to her google search of the photographer. "And you've been really busy for the past five months or so..."

"Yeah, after I sold the image to Halestorm's label, people started calling. I had to turn off my phone to get some peace and quiet." Echo spied her again, as if trying to discern another truth.

Clarke huffed exasperatedly. "Huh. Well, where was the shoot?"

"Out in the woods up Muir Road."

"Okay, thanks."

Echo studied her again. "So you're not with any ad company? Just here to ask about the guy?"

Clarke nodded. "I'm a resident at the hospital. He kinda saved my life the other night and I wanted to thank him properly."

"I can see why," she offered. "If I had the chance at the time, he would have been a nice distraction. I was broken-hearted then. My boyfriend and I had just had a fight, and things weren't looking so good. I wasn't getting the work I needed, and he was pushing me to keep trying, but I was on the brink of quitting photography forever."

Wondering what she might have done if she saw a random, sexy stranger in the woods on a beautiful night sent racy thoughts into her head. She shook herself out of them and asked, "But then the Halestorm album changed things for you?"

"After that shoot, I started to get more work, and then after they picked my photo for the album, things kinda went insane." She gestured nonchalantly around the studio as if to suggest getting this office was part of that crazy change.

Clarke looked around the room, really noticing the layout this time. One area was a mini set, a few soft boxes with some tough rolux and umbrella lights strewn about in front of a green screen. Another part of the studio housed more equipment and was probably where she touched up photos. But over everything else, her eyes were drawn to the prints on the wall.

She saw groups of portraits themed from wedding photos and baby announcements to headshots and landscapes, not to mention a couple advertisements for a few local businesses and four national campaigns. She really must have been very busy these past few months, and suddenly Clarke felt bad for lying to her and taking up some of her time.

"Wow, I can see why you are in such high demand. Let me pay you for your time," Clarke said, reaching into her purse. She had no idea how much Echo's time cost, but she assumed they'd bill an hour at minimum.

Echo gestured for her to leave her wallet in her purse. "Don't worry about it. But if you do find Bellamy, can you give him my card? I need to pay him for the shoot. Call it professional integrity." She produced a business card from her pocket and passed it to the blonde.

"I will," Clarke promised.

The two headed toward the door as Echo swept her long hair over her shoulders.

"That guy before - the one getting headshots, must be an actor?"

Echo smiled gently. "Yeah. Model who wants to break into acting. Had a lot of those lately."

"Are they all so..." Clarke searched for the right word.

"Gorgeous? Yeah, most of them are." Echo opened the door and the women found Kian standing in the reception area holding Echo's jacket.

"Ready," he asked her. "I pushed the reservation to 5:30 but they won't wait any longer."

Clarke shuffled toward the hall, deducing that the lovely photographer and her well-built assistant were more than just employer-employee. He must have been the boyfriend who believed in her when she felt at her lowest. It left her feeling like his behavior earlier was justified - he was looking out for his lady.

"Yeah," Echo said to him. "Nice meeting you, Clarke." Kian slipped her jacket onto her shoulders and took her hand in his.

As Clarke left the office, she overheard the assistant ask, "Clarke? I thought her name was Stella?"


	4. Chapter Four

It was dusk already and Clarke felt the impending night sneaking in as she studied the satellite image of the area with the river from the album cover on her phone. Though much of the terrain was obscured by dark green trees and bushes, she could still see the body of water snaking through it, and little patches of light brown where paths had been etched into the ground. She closed the app and pocketed her phone, and hauled her backpack on foot past the trail just off of Muir Road.

Making her way through the area, thick with towering evergreen Douglas-firs, she couldn't help but think how beautiful it must be when it snowed - a white winter wonderland, pure and unadulterated by the gritty city just a few miles away. Would it be weird to come out and decorate a tree at Christmas?

As nighttime gently took over the sky, Clarke found it a little harder to navigate, but she kept on, imagining finding Bellamy in the exact same position by the river as he was in the photo. What had he been doing out there that night anyway? Echo hadn't mentioned anything about a campsite or campfire, but that didn't necessarily mean he didn't have a site nearby the river.

The further she hiked into the wilderness area, the further behind she left her problems, and the closer she felt to her dad and her art. The stars shined brighter away from the city's light pollution, and she found herself connecting celestial starscapes - a shimmering sea spread out above her as far as she could see, its water so dark blue it could be confused for a sapphire-onyx hybrid. She imagined someone captaining a vessel through it, looking down at Earth as their map, slicing through calm waters and watching everything going on below. Is that how Heaven was? Was her father that captain, and she, the legend to his map?

Clarke stifled a sob and wiped her wet eyes.

Every atom in her body was pulling her through these woods as if by magnet. In her bag, she'd packed some jerky, nuts, and two water bottles, as well as a flashlight, toilet paper, and a light jacket. She hoped that was preparation enough, and that it wouldn't take too much longer to find the river or Bellamy.

When the incline began to steepen, she felt her heart beat a little faster, from both exertion and nervousness. She hadn't thought about what she would say when she found Bellamy. _I came to find you? No, that was lame. I've been looking for you all over? Too stalkerish. Maybe just tell him the truth._

Finally, she could hear the rushing stream and felt encouraged to continue. Right around the bend or just past the hill. He was here, she just _felt_ it.

Of course if he really wasn't, she was risking life and limb out here alone. The idea that she could get lost out here for days scared her. This area sometimes had wild animals, and when it rained, it could become slippery with mud. The ground was still pretty wet from the storm, and she hadn't thought she'd be out here too long.

 _Just two more minutes,_ she reasoned with herself. _If you don't find him, you'll turn around and go home._

Once she made it to the top of the incline, she saw the river, its white crests hurrying downstream. Then she caught movement about a quarter mile away. It was him - Bellamy was there, but she couldn't quite see what he was doing. Tending a freshly started campfire, maybe.

Excitedly, she walked down the slope with a plan to hug the river bank until she reached him, but a few feet from the embankment, she slipped on muddy ground, surprise taking over as she landed on her butt, sailed several feet as if on a sled, and slid right into the water feet first. As the rest of her body submerged, she panicked.

 _It's cold, it's cold,_ her thoughts rang in echo as the current carried her to its rapids. Her head sunk as the river dipped her under and she scrambled for the surface. Breaking through, she took the quickest deep breath she could and shouted out. "Bellamy!"

Back under the angry rapids, she held her breath and prayed that he'd heard her. _I don't want to drown. Please don't let me drown._

There was nothing scarier to Clarke than the idea of what it must feel like to drown. To be pulled under a current and held down by the weight of water until her lungs burned with the need to expand; how instinct would make her open her mouth to suck in air, but all that would rush in is water, and her lungs would fill with it, and her body would spasm with confusion thinking it breathed air when really, she had drowned.

She squeezed her eyes so tight she thought she saw lines of orange and neon blue, and then just as suddenly as she'd gone under, she'd been yanked up by a warm hand gripping her forearm. She gasped for breath while he looped one arm around her torso and the other under her legs, picked her up, and carried her onto the bank. He sat her on the berm and bent to look in her eyes. "Are you okay?"

She hadn't choked on water, hadn't spent enough time underwater that she ran out of breath, hadn't accidentally breathed in water. She was okay, if just cold from the cool night breeze whipping at her face. She nodded belatedly. "That's t-two t-times you've s-saved my life."

His dark brows tilted and he ran his hands up and down her arms, creating a little bit of warm friction. "Think you can walk? I have some extra clothes and a blanket in my tent if you want to get warm. Don't want you getting hypothermia on me."

She gingerly got to her feet and he led her through the flaps of his tent. He turned on his lantern and rummaged quickly through his pack to pull out a pair of jeans for himself, and some navy blue sweatpants and a red and blue flannel button up for Clarke. Passing them to the bright blonde, he said, "I'll just... wait out here."

She'd started to warm up a little as she thanked him and waited until he closed the tent before letting the extra clothes fall.

Her backpack slid from her shoulders, soaked through. She'd been so proud when she packed the toilet paper, which was undoubtedly a mushy mess now. Her jacket would not be usable until it dried. Same with the flashlight. But the food and water would be okay.

Belatedly, she felt her pocket for her phone, but it was gone. "Fuck," she muttered.

"You okay in there, Clarke?"

"Yeah, I just... lost my phone. But that's okay, everything's on the Cloud anyway."

Clarke toed off her shoes and peeled her socks off her feet and her pants down her legs. This was not how she anticipated the night would go. She was supposed to find Bellamy, talk to him and get to know him better, and find a way to get those soft lips of his back on hers. She'd even sort of planned an 'about that kiss' comment as an admittedly not-so-smooth segue to figure out if he'd liked their kiss and wanted more. Just thinking about kissing Bellamy helped her get warm.

She raised her shirt over her head and grazed the top of the tent with her fingertips, then immediately bent to take off her underwear. Certainly, she hadn't thought that the reason she might remove her underwear tonight - or that said underwear might be wet - was because she'd fallen into a river and gotten soaked to the bone. Finally, she reached her hands up behind her back and unclasped her bra, the wet material separating from her skin as her breasts sprang free. She heard Bellamy's jagged breath, and that's when she realized the lantern was at her side and she had essentially given him a silhouetted striptease. Her face burned with a mixture of embarrassment and pride, but since there was a barrier of old green nylon between them, a bit of courage rushed through her and she stood to her full height.

She knew her nipples were hard from the cold water and then cold air, but now she imagined their reaction if his warm mouth was around them. She hoped he found her silhouette attractive; she hoped he found her body attractive. She imagined his body underneath his clothes and felt her body getting even warmer.

Raven said once how, if she was alone with someone, she'd imagine what it would be like to have sex with them. Said women knew within the first minute of meeting someone whether sex was in the realm of possibilities for them. Clarke guessed it could be true. She could definitely see herself making love with Bellamy. He seemed like he'd be an attentive lover.

Jesus, it had been a long time since last she'd had sex. And even that was embarrassing to admit, because it was during that whole _Finn_ fiasco. _Finn-asco?_ She laughed to herself. She'd have to tell Raven that one.

She put on the flannel and buttoned it most of the way up, dragging her hair from underneath it and knotting it in a bun. She bent again and pulled his sweats up over her hips. She had to draw the string and fold the waist over a couple times to keep them from falling off. Gathering the blanket and her wet clothes, she stepped out of the tent and found Bellamy tending the fire, already having changed into his jeans.

Shyly, she smiled at him, draped her clothes next to his wet jeans and boxer briefs on a log on the opposite side of the fire. She stared down at their underwear for a second, realizing they were both going commando now, and laughed softly.

He returned her smile and watched her draw the blanket around her shoulders. "What's so funny?"

"I was just thinking about what you said at the coffee shop." She settled next to him.

"Yeah? What's that?" He stoked the fire with a long stick and watched the flames dance around in her irises. It was a perfect contradiction to him - the cool of her blue with the heat of those red-orange flickers.

"You said you wanted to see me without my work clothes on." A careful peek at him revealed his growing grin.

"Technically, _you_ wanted me to see you without your clothes on," he pointed out. "But now you're not wearing your clothes, you're wearing mine." His mischievous eyes seemed to add that he might not mind seeing her without _his_ clothes on, either.

"Thanks for letting me borrow them while mine dry." Clarke did not mention the accidental tent strip - out of some kind of fear of what his response might be.

"Ah, what kind of gentleman would I be if I let you freeze to death?" He watched the fire for a moment while Clarke looked up at the sky. "Glad I was here."

"Me, too. Who knows what would have happened if I hadn't found you?"

"How did you find me?"

She tried to count the stars reflecting in his beautiful dark eyes, but the longer she stared, the longer he stared right back, and it made her a little nervous. "First, I'm sorry I was late to our date. I wasn't trying to avoid you; in fact, it was the opposite. I hadn't meant to be so late but there was a huge accident and I was in surgery unti like three-something and I went to the coffee shop but you weren't there and the new guy said you didn't leave a number, so I left mine for you, but when I went home, I saw you."

He chuckled at her rambling. "You saw me?"

"Did you know you're on the cover for Halestorm's new album? On prominent display right by my apartment building."

"I was around here some months ago, and a photographer came through." He glanced away for a moment with dawning realization. "Wait, are you saying you came out here looking for me?"

Clarke could only nod, her skin mirroring the dark red fire.

"You just took a walk into the woods? Alone? At night?"

Again, she nodded. She probably sounded like a crazy person. "I checked the satellite map before I got out of range. Figured you'd be along the banks somewhere."

"Clarke, it can get treacherous out here. And this river runs for miles. How did you know where to go?"

He might have been concerned for her physical safety and not necessarily asking after her mental state. "I don't know, I just did. Guess I'm just lucky."

He studied her earnestly for a moment and came to some sort of conclusion. It seemed as if she just plain surprised him. Pleasantly. "I'd say I'm the lucky one."

She adjusted her butt on the log and finally looked around. Besides the fire and tent, he had set up a telescope and had a crank radio near it. She tilted her face up. "Do you come out here to look at the stars?"

"Mostly," he answered. The wonder on her moonlit face filled him with awe. "It relaxes me, and there's just something about the celestial that makes me feel... I don't know, abstract?" He pondered his word choice, but didn't correct it.

"Removed from time somehow," Clarke added, and his eyes brightened. "So that's why the telescope."

"Right again," he said, tossing a few small pieces of wood into the fire. "I'm also a bit of an astronomy buff. These constellations, they have been around a long time, and they are kind of like the sky's bedtime stories."

As he sat down next to her again, she asked, "tell me about one?"

Bellamy hummed and looked up into the sky. He leaned in close to her, the scent of earthy woods and peppermint wafting in the air, and pointed to a grouping of stars. "The Chained Lady," he began, and Clarke raised her brows.

He smelled clean, crisp. Like he hadn't just fished her out of a river. She basked in his nearness, pretending for just a moment that she didn't see the stars so she could feel his curls sweep her temple.

"Also known as Andromeda. Her mother Cassiopeia, the queen of Ethiopia, was sitting around bragging about her daughter's beauty one day, saying she was more beautiful than the sea nymphs, Nereids. These Nereids, well they get jealous and demand Poseidon punish her. No one can be as beautiful or more beautiful than them. So Poseidon agrees to unleash Cetus the sea monster on Ethiopia."

Fascinated, Clarke watched Bellamy's face as he continued telling the story. He must really love this.

"So Cepheus, the king of Ethiopia, he talks to this Oracle. The oracle says the only way to save his kingdom is to sacrifice his daughter to Cetus."

"That's not Andromeda's fault, though," Clarke interjected.

"No, it's not. But for the good of his kingdom and all its people, he agrees to chain his daughter to a rock as a sacrifice to Cetus, all to appease Poseidon."

"That's really sad," she murmured. She wondered if she could ever make a decision like that.

"Ah, but Cepheus had an idea. He contracted a warrior to fight the sea monster. Perseus fought Cetus and slew him, purportedly with a diamond sword."

"The hardest pure element known to man," Clarke supplied. "Why 'purportedly'?"

Bellamy turned his body toward hers. "Diamond is only the hardest pure element on earth," he replied vaguely.

"You're saying there's something harder out there somewhere?" Clarke blushed and tried to sweep the naughty thoughts away of what might possibly be harder than diamond.

"There is," he confirmed. He waited for her cheeks to blossom their full color. He traced her lips, her eyes, then back down to her lips, and then swallowed, his Adam's apple hopping a scant inch down and up. "Stardust."

Clarke's eyes welled with tears, much warmer than the water into which she had fallen. She reached a hand out of the blanket to wipe under her eye.

"Did I say something wrong?"

She sniffled and shook her head. "My dad used to call me that. Stardust."


	5. Chapter Five

Bellamy smiled gently, as if the nickname her father had given her made all the sense in the world. "Sounds like he was complimenting you. Stardust is tough." She stared off and picked at the inside of the blanket quietly before he continued. "I hope you don't mind my asking... when did he die?"

And for the first time since it happened, Clarke found she didn't mind that he asked, because he was a relative stranger. Everyone else in her life already knew that history, and none of them ever wanted to actually talk about it. It was only 'How are you' and 'I'm sorry for your loss' and the sudden quieting of conversations when she walked into a room. Everyone except Raven had treated her like she was so damn fragile that bringing up anything to do with her father would just shatter her. But Raven has been gone for six months already, and everyone else didn't want to hear what was on her heart. They wanted to hear that she was okay, because that would make it okay for them to stop the obligatory offerings of help, the 'let me know what I can do,' all those awkward feelings they felt when talking about a deceased person they really didn't know very well.

She took a steadying breath. "About a year ago. My dad was driving home from my his office party. The streets were really wet from the storms, and he was T-boned by a drunk driver."

"I'm really sorry to hear that."

She nodded, tears welling in her eyes more. She opened and closed her mouth, wanting to say more, but uncertain if she even could. "It's really hard sometimes, feeling like I'm drowning in grief. And then other times, I'm just numb. I just... I miss him so much."

He noted the aching sweetness in her tone when she talked about her dad. "It sounds like you and your dad were pretty close."

"He's the one that made it okay for me to pursue art," she divulged. "Mom didn't want me to. She thought it would detract from my studies and ultimately lead me to a life unfulfilled, or lead me away from medicine."

"But your dad convinced you to do both?"

Clarke searched his dark eyes, sparkling like stars in the midnight sky. "When I was little, we used to make universes out of the stars. Whole worlds full of amazing people and their fantastical stories. He told me a few stories about constellations, but for the most part, it's like I could just see things in them. You know how people look at cloud formations and make shapes out of them?"

Bellamy nodded. Just watching her face filled him with fascination.

"Well I'd do that with the nighttime sky. Sometimes we'd play music or I'd draw or paint or use charcoals. Just flowed out like roots growing out of my fingertips and taking hold, and expanded into my art like a drop of ink in water."

Sitting on the edge of the log, Bellamy leaned back. When she talked about art like that, he understood how she really couldn't ignore the drive to create. She came alive when she talked about it. Her eyes shined brighter and twinkled. "Maybe you can show me some sometime."

She bit her lower lip and looked down. "I would really like that." Never mind that all of her current drawings were of him...

He smiled and raised a brow, content to let her talk and just listen to the rasp of her voice. "I have to ask..." he started.

Anticipation built in her body like entropy. Was he going to bring up their kiss?

"Is there a story behind your first name?"

"Ah, yes, the whole 'isn't that a boy's name' question." She been asked thousands of times why her parents would give her a boy's name. When she was preteen, some bullies tried to goad her by suggesting she was born a boy. She shook the memories away.

"I'm sure you've been asked that plenty of times by a bunch of imbeciles, but what I want to know is: is there a story behind it? Is Clarke a family name?"

Regarding him seriously and with pleasant surprise, her mouth dropped open. Of course he hadn't acted like those bullies in grade school. He asked about why she was named Clarke. "I was named after my grandfather. My dad's dad was Clark - with no 'e' - Griffin."

Bellamy glanced up at the sky for a moment and stood up. "They must have loved him very much to name their child after him."

"They did. He passed away before I was born. Dad used to tell stories about him, and I've seen pictures, but I wish I could've known him. He sounded so interesting. He was a professor at university, he taught British History."

"What about your grandmother?" Bellamy prodded.

"She passed away, too. Cancer. Also a professor, but of Womens Studies. My dad says I look just like her."

"Well, your grandmother must have been a beautiful woman, then, Princess." He threw one more log on the fire.

"Princess?" She peered up at him, hoping he wasn't another in a long line of jerks who thought she was entitled because of her parents' wealth and social status.

He grinned nervously and sat back down next to her. After a few seconds pause, he took a steadying breath. "When I see you, it's like you're surrounded by light, by stars. They're all around you like a tiara, and in your eyes, in your smile. You can't help it, you just... shimmer."

She usually hated all the little diminishing nicknames, but when he explained this one, her heart blossomed and she blushed. She wanted to kiss him again.

"So," he said, breaking up the quiet again. "Do you have any siblings?"

Clarke shook her head. "When my mom was in labor, there were complications and she had to have a postpartum hysterectomy. It saved her life, but that meant my parents couldn't have any more kids after me. So my dad got to pick my first name and my mom got to pick my middle name."

"Which is?"

"Don't laugh," she ordered.

"Why would I laugh?"

Well, because those same bullies who teased her back then also made fun of her middle name. "It's Ariadne."

Bellamy's dark eyes lit up, then, and he quieted again for a few moments as if something dawned on him. "It suits you well."

"Thanks, I think."

"Oh, it's definitely a compliment," he assured her. He stood up and motioned toward the telescope. "Want to have a look?"

"Yeah, I do." She pulled her arms out from the blanket and stood up, feeling much better now that she was warm and dry. She folded the blanket haphazardly and set it on the log.

As he busied himself with peering through the scope and adjusting various parts, Clarke watched the way his jaw moved and noted how blue-black his hair looked in the moonlight. It was almost identical to the Halestorm album.

Backing away, he gestured for her to step forward and look. And when she did, her whole world was stars. Just an infinite sea with an endless depth of different-sized lights, their forms pulling outward as if they had sharp corners, their centers indeterminate yet luminescent.

She felt Bellamy's warm hands - one on her shoulder and one over her left hand, which itself was resting on the side of the telescope. He gently pushed her hand to the right, which swept the scope to the left, and Clarke gasped at her new view.

"That's Neptune," he said quietly. The joy on her face was intoxicating. Light seemed to work both ways in that moment, flowing back through the scope and turning her irises Neptune-blue.

It was a wonder she never had a telescope before. She'd never felt so far away or so close as she felt then. "It's like the calmest ocean. I mean, I know it's not made of water, but don't you just want to swim in it? It's is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen."

With the color and light playing off her eyes, he couldn't tear his away from her. "Me, too."

She finally stepped back, then her skin turned rosy as she realized he had been looking at her. "Thank you for showing me this."

His easy smile was contagious, but he didn't respond.

"You've given me the stars," she marveled.

He shrugged. "And a planet. No big deal." They shared a chuckle. "What else do you like doing besides creating art and checking people out - your words - at the hospital? Do you live nearby?"

"Nearby the hospital, yes. I have a roommate, Raven. She's brilliant. So brilliant she landed an internship with the Kennedy Space Center six months ago. And she's gorgeous."

"I'm sure she is," he said.

"I love caffeine, which you already know. That's how I met your friend the other day."

That little fact grabbed his full attention. "My friend?"

Clarke nodded. "'Bout yay tall," she motioned with her hand. "Extra broody. Dark hair... Went to the coffee shop late and he was working there. Bought me a doughnut. Goes by John Murphy."

Bellamy's head bobbed lightly. "You met Murphy, huh?"

His tone surprised her in its near-exactness to the tone Murphy used when he found out Bellamy had kissed her. It was almost as if the two men had some kind of unspoken rivalry. Or maybe it was very spoken. She tested the waters. "Yeah. He's pretty nice."

"You're kidding me, right? I'm not sure if we can hang out if you think that," he joked.

The look of shock on his face broke her almost immediately. "Wow, that serious, huh? What is it with you two?"

"He's kinda my brother."

"Kinda?" She had a hard time believing that, considering they didn't look that much alike, not to mention they seemed to be about the same age.

"Half brother," he specified as if an afterthought.

Okay, she could see that. It also meant that they had a sibling rivalry at least. "Well, he was nice to me."

"Bought you a doughnut and all."

"Right."

"Was it your favorite kind?"

"Yeah. Glazed old fashioned."

He made a mental note.

Clarke took a few steps closer to him. "Besides brother Murphy, tell me more about you."

"What about me?"

"Well, here I am going on about my parents and art, and all I know about you is your first name, your ability to save my life, and that you're an amazing kisser."

He smirked sideways at her. "Not a lot to know. My last name is Blake. I like stargazing and saving your life," he laughed. His jerked the hair out of his eyes. "And I really liked kissing you."

Clarke wet her lips. "I really liked it, too."

For a full minute, they stood staring at each other, neither making a move. He looked back at his tent. "We should probably get some sleep so we can hike back in the morning."

She hadn't thought about camping overnight by the river, she'd kind of just winged it, hoping she'd find him. It made sense now, though, not to hike out of the woods in the middle of the night. Plus, she liked the idea of laying next to him. "Are you asking me to sleep with you? Bellamy Blake..."

His eyes drifted shut when she said his name with a note of flirtation, as if she would ask what kind of girl he thought she was. "I'll be a gentleman."

 _What if I don't want you to be?_ Clarke bit her lip to keep that thought from racing out. She crossed to the other side of the fire to check on her clothes, but they were still damp.

"You go ahead and get ready. I'm going to pack up the telescope and douse the fire."

Clarke grabbed the blanket from the log and stepped into the tent. She turned on the lantern and looked around. One sleeping bag, of course. He hadn't expected any company, so why would he bring two?

She zipped open the bag and laid it out flat on the thin mat, and then did the same with the blanket over the bag. They were just going to have to share. A small smile tugged at her lips.

She crawled between the fabrics and laid on her side. She heard him extinguish the fire and then he ducked into the tent. He set his telescope to the side and gave Clarke a playfully admonishing look. "I was going to take the blanket so you could have the sleeping bag."

"Well this way, we can share. Besides, body heat is important in cold situations." Clarke peeled back the blanket and gestured for him to join her. "We're adults. I think we are capable of controlling ourselves."

He shook his head, but his grin eventually curved his lips. "Clarke Ariadne Griffin, why do I think you're going to challenge everything I say and do?" He settled next to her on the pallet and rested propped up on one elbow, turned to his side, facing her.

"Maybe there are certain things I am keenly aware that I need." She focused on his lips. "That I want."

His jovial face shifted to a more serious one, and his defenses seemed to drift away like a melody on a passing breeze. "Do you want me to kiss you again, Clarke?"

Her mouth watered even though Bellamy was the one who looked so thirsty. He leaned forward and reached out for her face, and then guided her lips to his.

Like their first kiss, his lips were soft against hers as he pulled her bottom lip between his, which gave her the chance to feel and caress his upper lip between hers. When neither of them pulled away, Clarke tilted her head and parted her lips, and true to every wish in her mind, Bellamy deepened their kiss.

She threaded her fingers in his hair and pulled him closer, until she kicked the blanket away and he crawled over her to settle with one leg between hers. When he finally broke the kiss, it was to ghost down the porcelain column of her neck and start all over again there, smearing his lips and tongue against her throat and behind her ear.

Moaning at the feelings his kisses awakened deep in her core, Clarke thought about the fact that she didn't have any underwear on - because it was drying by the now-doused campfire - which she guessed was fortuitous because if they were on, they'd just be getting wet again.

Bellamy licked his way softly back up to her mouth and spent more time kissing her. She felt like her hands were everywhere: sliding through his hair, along his jaw and neck, down the slope of his back and along his muscled arms. She pulled him further against her body by his lower back and he growled in frustration and paused. Clarke took a few seconds to release his lower lip, a few seconds in which he looked feral, wild with passion, before some semblance of self cleared his eyes.

"Are you okay," Clarke asked, her hand sweeping along his forehead and cheek.

He nuzzled into her palm and kissed it. "Kissing you... it's like a whole universe implodes behind my eyelids, like floating effortlessly in the celestial." He thought for a moment, unable to put into words exactly what he was feeling. "Heavy."

Clarke smiled underneath him. No one ever said anything like that about kissing her - and that was just kissing. Any passionate embraces she'd experienced had mostly been born of some kind of delayed satisfaction building to a boiling point, but no one had ever continued seducing her with such abstract soulfulness.

She wanted to draw him, right then. Commit every part of him to paper or canvas or her own skin so she could remember this moment exactly how it felt; sketch the way his eyes shined with lust in the darkness, charcoal his freckles in like boyish stars in the sky, paint his strong body in reds and oranges, and streaks of blue so deep they'd mirror the currents running just above the riverbed. She wanted to twist and tug his hair until they became the storm clouds curling over the landscape, scrape her fingernails down his back in the same elegant lines of his body, brush in his muscles with her tongue and sculpt his face by kisses.

Speechless, she crunched up to meet his lips again.


	6. Chapter Six

Bellamy woke up before Clarke the next morning, to the blue-eyed beauty wrapped up in his arms, her backside pressed against his front. He wasn't much of a sleeper anyway, so he laid there, staring at the shimmering lines of her skin in awe.

It made him feel kind of crazy but also special in some way, to think he was the only one to see the constellations - patterns throughout her being that no one else had seen or could ever see. Streaks of light settled on her cheekbones and tiny twinkles rested on her lips. Everywhere he kissed her last night left sparkling currents on her skin.

He wished harder than he ever had before that he could be allowed to be with her, stay with her, but Muses weren't allowed to have relationships with humans. They were supposed to do their jobs and move on. Inspire them with a single kiss, set them on the path of achieving their dream, and find the next person. But how was he supposed to walk away from someone who inspired him, someone whose very being glowed? How could he walk away from her, especially when she sought him out, tracked him down, and fell right into his life?

He would not be reprimanded for kissing her; after all, it was sort of his job to do so (at least that's how he justified it), but he really shouldn't take it any farther, no matter how badly he wanted to. And he really wanted to. He'd never met anyone like her. It was just... he only had a little bit of time to do what he'd set out to do on this little vacation: find his baby sister.

He'd been so distracted and dejected that night, in the rain, when he saw Clarke heading into the crosswalk, she, also distracted. He hadn't had much luck during the day looking for his sister, and had been thinking about going to get a drink - the liquor topside was much more robust. And then there Clarke was, walking through that crosswalk, the rain drops lit up by the light of her skin, which he thought couldn't have been right. How could she radiate light like that?

When he saw the car heading her way, he knew what was about to happen. It wasn't just the rain that had distracted her - she was somewhere else mentally, and she didn't see or hear the approaching vehicle. Despite knowing the rules, he bolted out to her as fast as he could go, and tackled her out of the way.

Once they determined they were both fine, he just couldn't help but lean in. He wanted to taste her stars, and she was the whole universe at his lips. Realizing he'd kissed someone he probably shouldn't have, he then took off. It was what he was supposed to do anyway. He and his brothers all knew the rules, paramount of which was: kiss the mark and then move on.

When she flirted with him last night, though, he tried to talk himself out of it, be a gentleman, keep the situation from getting out of hand. None of those attempts could sustain their chemistry, however, and he finally asked her if she wanted him to kiss her again.

Her lips molded to his quickly. All the little moans and light hair tugging and lip sucking and nibbling were proof that she enjoyed kissing him. And her hands were everywhere, which also felt nice. Those searching fingertips and warm palms sweeping under his shirt left him aching for her. It'd been a while since anyone had touched him with any kind of passionate need, which made it extra difficult to stop their forward momentum when she pulled him closer, kept pulling him closer, against her torso, against her center. His rationale disintegrated and he had to take a break before he combusted.

Begrudgingly, he'd eventually convinced Clarke that they really needed sleep, and that he really needed to be a gentleman. She pouted a little, but said she had to go into work tomorrow afternoon, anyway. They talked for a little bit longer. She asked some personal questions he expertly avoided.

' _Where did you grow up?'_

 _'Down south.'_

 _'But you lost your accent._ _Where do you live now?'_

 _'Nearby.'_

 _'What do you do for a job? Or do you just model?'_

 _'I freelance.'_

None of it was a lie, per se, but it wasn't the whole truth either. She didn't push him for more info. They'd fallen asleep facing each other, but somehow he'd turned into the big spoon, which would only be problematic if she woke up right now to his morning erection.

As if hating himself for it, he extracted himself from around her, covered her shoulders with the blanket, and got up to build a fire so he could make coffee. The sun wasn't up yet, but the birds were out and the sounds of rushing water helped to cool his heated thoughts.

The last time he'd seen his little sister was eighteen years ago when he and his mother, Aurora, dropped her off at the orphanage only two days after she was born. It was a grueling day of traveling between worlds and trying to avoid the other gods so they would not find out about the girl who wasn't supposed to exist.

Bellamy begged his mother to keep her. He had eight half brothers, but he never had a sister before, and he vowed when she was born that he would take care of her. He wanted to keep his promise, but in order to keep her safe, his mother said, they had to let her go.

He often wondered what she was like. She had dark hair like him when she was born, wild hair that went everywhere and he hoped it was a sign of her personality. Was she wild and unpredictable? Soft hearted and sweet? What did she look like now? Was she ever adopted? What was her life like?

His brothers did not talk about her - they, too, knew that if she were to be discovered, they would all find themselves at the forefront of the gods' wrath. His mother didn't even give her a name, because if they didn't know her name, she'd be safer. But he slipped a paper in her bassinet, unbeknownst to anyone else, with the name he'd picked for her: Octavia Blake. So at least he had that to go on.

Now that Murphy was in town, too, maybe Bellamy could talk him into joining him to find their half sister. As soon as Clarke made it home safely, he'd check with St. Christopher's and see, now that she was eighteen, if they could tell him what happened to her, or maybe give him a location where he could find her, then stop by the coffee shop if Murphy was in fact working there.

The coffee was almost ready when Clarke emerged from the tent, bright blonde hair in an adorable mess from the previous day's falling into the river and their making out for an hour. He couldn't help but to tangle his fingers in it at the time. It felt like the closest he might get to touching and tasting the stars.

"Bellamy," her raspy voice greeted, and he looked up, a smile spreading on his face. He loved his name on her lips. Like it was infused with the exact most beautiful thing in this world, his own name, when she said it, filled him with an indescribable need, a need he had to tamp down. He did not want to anger the gods.

He saw she was still wearing his clothes. The flannel looked comfortable but large, and the sweats were too big, but that just meant they'd be easy to take off. He shook that thought away and motioned to the French press steeping the coffee on the ground. "Coffee," he explained.

Clarke joined him by the fire and warmed her hands. They sat in comfortable silence until Bellamy pushed the mesh plunger on the press and pulled out his thermos cup from his pack to pour her some. "Sorry I don't have any sugar or cream."

Accepting the cup, she sipped gingerly to test the temperature. "Thanks."

"I think our clothes are still wet," he informed, gesturing to their clothes, which still laid strewn in the other log. "But you can wear mine home if you want."

She took another sip and caught his eyes. "You don't mind?"

Hades, no, he didn't mind. "Of course not."

"Thanks. I'll wash them and find a way to return them to you."

He liked that idea. It meant he'd get to see her again.

They collected their wet clothes and Clarke helped him collapse and pack up his tent, and before the hour was up, they were hiking out of the woods.

He was no longer surprised that she had a natural inclination when it came to navigating the woods. He hadn't explained to her that her middle name, Ariadne, meant utterly pure, and that in mythology, Ariadne was Minos' daughter, which made her a princess. Ariadne's tale included helping Theseus out of the minotaur's labyrinth because of her skill with mazes and labyrinths. Clarke has probably already read up on those tales and maybe had come to the same conclusions.

When they made it to the mile marker at the mouth of the woods, she said she would have a new phone in a couple of hours, and gave him her number. She peeked at him from under her lashes and smiled as he pocketed her contact info.

"What," he asked, grinning. "Do I have something on my face?"

Standing on her tiptoes, Clarke kissed him gently. He reveled in it. Gods, she was a great kisser, and as he embraced her, she moaned into his mouth again. He really liked that he seemed to have such an effect on her. He really liked the effects she had on him, too.

"Bellamy," she began in a sultry tone, "please call me. I'd love to see you again."

He nodded. "I will," he promised.

First order of business after they parted ways was to get a cell phone. As soon as he obtained one, he programmed Clarke's info into it. She'd need to get a new phone, too, so he'd wait until tomorrow to call.

After that, he found his way to St. Christopher's. Or what used to be St. Christopher's. The place seemed to have been demolished years ago, judging by the strip mall that was there now. The strip mall had seven or eight shops on one side where the kids smaller than eight used to be, and another five where the other wing for older kids and the classrooms were.

He frowned and made his way into the corner shop of the first wing - a formal attire place claiming the best suits and tuxedos on the west coast. An older gentleman with a full head of salt and pepper hair greeted him as he made his way to the register. He was thin, clean shaven, and wore a nice black pair of dress pants with a white dress shirt, sleeves folded up, and had a measuring tape hung around his neck like a tiny measuring scarf.

"How can we help you today? Getting married? Daughter's quinceanara? Swanky dinner reservations?"

Bellamy smiled warmly. "Unfortunately, no. I was wondering how long you've been here - well, how long this mall has been here?"

The man thought about it a moment. "Coming up on twelve years this April."

Twelve years... Bellamy felt somewhat guilty for not having come to check up on his sister over the years. If he'd have known the orphanage was in trouble, he would have made sure to be there so he knew what happened to Octavia. "Are you the owner of this place?"

The man nodded and seemed to discern the truth before Bellamy could ask it. "You're looking for something that was here before?"

"I'm looking for my sister. She would have been at St. Christopher's eighteen years ago, which is the place I was hoping to find today."

"Your sister?" The man came out from behind the counter. He paused and looked into Bellamy's eyes. "Well, I know that before construction began on this site, the orphanage was practically overflowing with kids. They needed a third wing, but the site was too small. I bet they built somewhere else."

It broke his heart that they had enough children to warrant another wing. He frowned with resignation. With so many children needing adoption, it would be easy for a kid to get stuck in the system, or get overlooked by families.

"Thank you, uh..."

"Gio," the man said. "Gio Ricci."

He shook the man's hand. "Bellamy Blake."

The man assessed Bellamy's shoulders a moment, eying his measurements like a true tailor. "Let me know if you ever need formal wear - I have just the suit in mind."

"Sure thing."

"Good luck finding your sister."


End file.
